


Translations

by trell (qunlat)



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4810178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qunlat/pseuds/trell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of translated One Piece stories selected from the original collection, mostly focusing on Law.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. law, luffy.

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [рдлп](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3580266) by [corageddon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corageddon/pseuds/corageddon). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Law reflects on Dressrosa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Translation of the fic found in Chapter 9 of the original work.)

“Let me see,” Law says. “I want to know how it works.”

Asking for something like that, the important thing is—not to betray himself. If he maintains a serious expression, Strawhat will believe that this is just scientific inquiry—actually, if Law knows him at all, Strawhat will believe just about anything, and he won’t even ask questions.

True to himself, Strawhat Luffy doesn’t ask. He just says _okay_ , and activates his fourth gear.

Dark patterns of haki rise on his skin—just where Law remembers them having been. Exactly where they’d been, when a single blow from Strawhat had sent Doflamingo plummeting down.

Law forgets to breathe.

He reaches out and runs his fingers along the spot on Luffy’s chest where the cold shield of haki meets warm skin. He almost expects to cut his fingers on the tattoo’s edge. 

“And can you keep it up very long?” he asks, as if he’s really interested. As if he can’t time the duration of Strawhat’s fourth gear in the intakes of his own breath. Law doesn’t think he could forget a single moment of that fight, even if he should ever want to.

(He won’t want to.)

Luffy shrugs his shoulders.

“Longer, when I’m not attacking.”

Law had seen his attack. Watched, refusing to let himself so much as blink, trying not to a miss a moment of his—their, both of theirs—triumph or defeat. He’d wanted, desperately wanted, to be the one up above instead of Luffy; so that he, not Strawhat, would have been the one to risk his life to stop Doflamingo. He hates himself for the utterly Doflamingo-like ease with which he put his ally in harm’s way. Yes, it was him that ought to have been there, above Dressrosa, for Strawhat to slug with a haki-tattooed fist.

And as though he knows what Law’s thinking about Strawhat grabs him by the shoulders (the dark designs dance in front of Law’s eyes) and gives him a shake. Law didn’t give himself away, of course. It’s all Strawhat’s damned intuition, his devil’s senses that always find the truth and aren’t ever mistaken.

“Torao,” says Strawhat, querulous. 

Law blinks, and drops his hand.

“You can stop,” he says.

 _Leave it a little longer_ , he thinks to himself.

Strawhat Luffy, of course, hears the true version. Or maybe he doesn’t hear anything at all save himself, just like always, when he laughs and throws a haki-darkened arm around Law’s neck and pulls him close.

Either way, Law doesn't intend to protest.


	2. vivi.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is Vivi, sand, and PTSD.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Translation of the fic found in Chapter 10 of the original work.)

Every day she has so much to do. 

The wounds inflicted upon the country by civil war heal slowly, but they heal. The responsibility Vivi feels for her people is greater than ever before. She works ceaselessly at calling people back to the abandoned towns, helps those that have lost their home or their family, consoles, approves, sets an example; everyone wonders at the enduring spirit of the young princess, and she’s admired, she’s loved. 

Every evening she’s falling over from fatigue; she has just barely enough energy to flip through the papers in search of any mention of Strawhat Luffy and his crew, kiss her father good night, and go to her room.

Tomorrow, as soon as the sun rolls into the sky as though pushed along by an invisible scarab, yet another day full of the concerns of a ruler for her subjects will begin. Vivi knows she needs to rest, and falls asleep almost instantly.

But every night she wakes from nightmares. Anxious unease won’t allow her to rest; Vivi has spent too long fearing for her country to sleep easily now.

She dreams that the clocktower detonates over the square, a wave of fire blanketing the combatants below, thousands of people burning alive without realizing that they took up arms against their own, blameless brothers. She dreams that the rivers run dry in front of her eyes, the oases die, the palace towers crumble, that everything is swallowed by sand. She dreams that Koza bursts into the throne room and fires on her father, and—falling to his knees—looks down at the slow spread of a dark stain across his own chest, surprised and almost affronted, just like when they’d played together as children. She dreams about blood dripping off Luffy’s fingers, his bare legs, his chin, off the golden hook piercing his body all the way through.

She fears going back to sleep.

She gets up from the bed, walks to the window and takes in the city, washed with cold light by the disc of the moon.

Looks out until she starts shivering from the cold, until she can feel her thoughts tangling from exhaustion, until the buffet of the night wind playfully flings towards her a handful of sand; and then she yelps and staggers back, slamming the window. 

She returns to the bed, pulls up the covers, hugs her knees; and it seems to her as though the sand brushes over her skin, licks roughly away the cold sweat on her back, sucks out of her every last drop of benevolence and leaves her empty, dry and brittle, like a plant that’s died of drought. She feels the touch of Crocodile’s hand on her head, on her shoulders, squeezing her throat so she can’t get out so much as a sob; and he’s here in the palace and he’s on every street in the city, in every sand dune beyond the outskirts; and she fears him and she hates him, desperately, with all of her exhausted heart, for it’s because of him that she can’t stop fearing and hating her country.

The sand sings, and Vivi covers her ears with her hands. It makes her hear the roar of the sea, and Vivi regrets—regrets with all of heart—that she didn’t run away with the Strawhats, didn’t abandon this country that suffocates with thirst for those places where drought doesn’t exist and the wind smells briskly of salt, where waves splash against the ship’s edge and there’s not a single speck of sand to be found.

But at least that’s where the others are; they must be happy there, Vivi thinks, and imagines Luffy’s guffawing laughter as he steals the last scrap off Usopp’s plate, Nami telling off Zoro for falling asleep again during his watch, Sanji bringing iced tea to Chopper after he complains of the heat. It’s good that they’re happy, and Vivi smiles, forgets for a while about her own fears and falls finally into a sleep without dreams.

Every morning she hesitates only a second, and then: takes a deep breath and steps surely over the threshold, the hot sand familiar, hugging her shoulders like an old friend.


	3. law, hawkins, kid, luffy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate canon post-Dressrosa, in which Law seeks out Hawkins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Translation of the fic found in Chapter 11 of the original work.)

Kid could pinpoint exactly which card represented Trafalgar Law. That is, he didn’t have a clue what card it actually was, because Hawkins laid it on the table face-down; what he did know was that when Hawkins saw it the disinterested expression on his face became even more so, in a really expressive sort of way, and then he set it down on the table, got to his feet and started cooking up some inexplicable shit—plunging his hands into different silk bags and fishing out first a generous pinch of leaves, then a flower, then some indescribable crap and tossing all of it in the brew. 

Apu didn’t so much as skip a beat of his melody. Kid wasn’t surprised, either—for all he cared, Hawkins could knock back hallucinogenic mushrooms, provided it helped him find Shanks’ ship.

But Hawkins didn’t knock back anything—just set the grass aside to billow steam from its mug until the door opened, and only then nodded towards the concoction and said:

“Drink.”

“Some greeting you’ve got,” said Trafalgar Law, wrinkling his nose, and closed the door behind him.

“It’s to combat blood loss,” Hawkins clarified. Kid didn’t know if Hawkins had seen about the blood loss on the same card that had told him that Law was coming, or whether he’d figured it out by way of Law’s overall tattered appearance. By smell, maybe—Law reeked distinctly of blood, of grass and dirt and dust and burning, of gunpowder, but blood most of all. Injuries like that Kid could’ve picked out even with his eyes closed.

Law grunted something about the uselessness of nontraditional medicine, but took the mug and gulped some of the brew.

“What’s the government’s dog doing here?” Apu asked, suspicious. Law lowered the mug and blinked.

“The human orchestra. And Eustass,” he said, like he was only noticing them then. “You have business here, gentlemen? Don’t worry, I won’t eavesdrop. I only came to collect on an old debt.”

“And what do you want?” asked Hawkins.

Law set the mug down with a clunk.

“Sleep,” he said, with a look that was at once amused and disarmingly earnest. “A few hours of quiet, and if Strawhat shows up here looking for me, tell him I’ve kicked the bucket and you tossed my body overboard.”

Kid snorted despite himself, couldn’t resist needling:

“What, Strawhat makes a shitty partner?”

Law’s gaze flicked to him: it was the only thing about him that still seemed alive, like the last glowing ember in a pile of ash.

“On the contrary,” he said, breathing a laugh that was just like two years ago, at Sabaody. “Strawhat makes a fucking extraordinary partner. Try it, you’ll like it for sure.”

His right arm was soaked with so much blood it was as though someone had torn it off and then sewn it haphazardly back on; his skin was covered in cuts and abrasions; the bandages on his torso were bloody, his jeans splattered with ugly brown stains, his coat hanging around him in shreds. Trafalgar Law didn’t look like someone who had experienced an alliance with a fucking extraordinary partner.

But Kid didn’t hear any sarcasm in his voice.

Hawkins followed Trafalgar with a grave gaze as he hobbled over to the bed and collapsed on it, blood and dirt and all. Dispassionately, he informed him,

“If you don’t at least take off your boots, I’ll tear out your heart.” 

“I can give it to you anyway,” promised Law, and prodded the tips of his fingers against his own chest. A live, beating heart slipped out of his breast and slopped onto the covers.

Apu made a choked noise and jerked back together with his chair. Kid caught himself no longer breathing.

“Here.” Law picked up the heart and held it out to Hawkins on an open palm. “I don’t need it now.” And added, in a conspiratorial half-whisper: “I haven’t got anything to fear anymore.”

Not a lie: the heart beat slowly, evenly. Hypnotically; Kid could feel the sharp desire to touch it burning in his fingers, wanted suddenly to hold it in his hands, maybe to squeeze and feel it twitching in his firm grip. 

Hawkins, the cretin, only scrunched up his face in disgust:

“You’ve finally lost it. Put that away.”

Law stretched out on the bed, put up his feet—boots still on—pressed the heart close to his chest, though he didn’t put it back in its place. Let his eyes drop half-closed, and burrowed against the pillow with a blissful smile.

“I haven’t lost it. It’s just that for the first time in fuck knows how many years I’m feeling something so like happiness,” was his drowsily mumbled response.

Judging by such uncharacteristic earnestness, his need for rest really was dire.

“Just what is it you owe him?” asked Apu, when Law had stopped moving and his breathing had become even, betraying that he was truly asleep. 

Hawkins shrugged his shoulders.

“Trafalgar once pulled me back from the next life, together with half my crew. Back in the North Blue. Before we entered the Grand Line.”

Kid hmmed—keeling over before even reaching the Grand Line, that ought to have been enough to scare off any rookie—but aloud he said nothing: he was too taken in by the way Trafalgar’s relaxed fingers, resting atop his heart, moved with its rhythmic beat.

 

If Hawkins knew also that Strawhat Luffy was coming ahead of time, he didn’t show it. Strawhat blew into another captain’s cabin like it was his own, slamming the door—which creaked pitiably—against the wall and started shouting:

“Torao, are you here? Torao! Hey, you guys, have you seen Torao?”

Apu jumped to his feet: his cowardly, paranoid constitution couldn’t handle a second intrusion on the same day.

“Oh! The guy with the metal!” Luffy exclaimed, as happy to see Kid as if they were old friends. “Whoa, what’s with your arm? Totally awesome! Wait, have you seen Torao?”

“I’ve seen what?” asked Kid, and in the same instant made the connection.

“You know, Torao. Like, spots, hat, we all fought the marines on the bubble island together,” confirmed Luffy, spun his head back and forth and noticed Trafalgar sooner than he could get a reply; at which point he immediately leapt across the entire cabin and landed directly on the bed, miraculously avoiding kicking his ally’s bandaged injuries. 

“Torao, hey, Torao, get up, your crew’s here, hey! They’ll be able to heal you better than that guy on Dressrosa. Torao?”

Trafalgar, evidently, was set on pretending that he didn’t hear. Very convincingly.

Or not pretending, Kid realized suddenly. Strawhat must have come to the same conclusion, because he shut up suddenly, gave Trafalgar a noisy rubber slap, then pressed an ear against his chest and froze.

“Hey,” he said after a few seconds, raising his head and staring at the three of them with round eyes, “why’s his heart not beating?”

Hawkins answered:

“He cut it out. Look under the pillow.”

“Oh,” nodded Strawhat, apparently unsurprised—he must have already seen Trafalgar’s gruesome tricks and had time to grow used to them—and climbed off the bed. “Why’d he do that?”

Hawkins shrugged. “From happiness, apparently.”

Luffy blinked, shook himself off, stuck his hand under the pillow and pulled out the heart, hiding it in his coat—right across from his own. After that he heaved Trafalgar onto his shoulder, and, not saying another word, ran off back from where he’d come.

Cooling bloodstains remained on Hawkins’ bed.


	4. law, luffy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Law is dying, and Luffy is not upset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Translation of the fic found in Chapter 12 of the original work.)

The last time Law finds him on his own, without warning and without asking where he is—even though god knows it’s not easy to find the king of the pirates. Especially now, when boredom makes Luffy whip back and forth in the wildest of directions, like a ball ricocheting off too-close walls. For Luffy this world hasn’t enough space; restless energy burns inside him and can’t find an outlet, strangled by this long-awaited calling. 

Law might have dragged himself after them on his ship ceaselessly for weeks. He might have had his own informants, or incredible senses, or he might have simply had the luck to come across Luffy by accident—Luffy, true to his nature, never even stops to consider this; only smiles from ear to ear when he sees Law and waves, nearly jumping, undignified, in his seat.

“Torao!” he yells. “Hey, Torao, I’m so happy to see you! Wow, you look like shit—hey, guys, Torao’s here—are you alone? We’re just about to go into town, are you with us?”

Law smiles—weakly, colorlessly, like he’s long since forgotten how it’s done. It’s impossible to acclimate to that stupefying Strawhat joy towards life, impossible to resist it; it’s capable of pulling a smile even from someone that a smile would suit no better than it would the dead. 

“Is this business?” asks Luffy and drops his worn-out hat on Law’s head, sizes up the sight with delight and a shining grin. Damned if Law knows why—maybe to Luffy this serves in place of a reunion hug.

Law knows that he’ll grab it back within half a minute; the hat’s the only thing that Luffy guards so jealously.

“Yes. No,” Law immediately corrects himself, helplessly shrugs his shoulders and lets out a sigh. “It can wait.”

“Oh. Okay,” Luffy agrees easily, and snatches the hat off his head. “How’s things in the Grand Line? Hancock stopped hunting you yet? I told her not to be angry, but you know how she is. Nami, hey, Nami, we’re gonna go ahead, okay? You guys catch up!” and he yanks on Law’s sleeve, leading him down the street. 

And doesn’t ask again why he’s here. And Law, in some strange way, feels as though it wouldn’t be right to say—too out-of-place would it sound next to Luffy. Anywhere within a hemisphere of Luffy, more likely.

So he doesn’t say anything. He allows Luffy to pull him around the island, goes to their parties, sometimes drinks with everyone else, sometimes laughs. Luffy’s careless smile poisons him like venom, he catches it greedily, drinks it in, inveigles it into his consciousness. It’s long past when he should’ve left, only he still can’t stop, even knowing that soon he’ll be poison himself, as always happens with corpses.

He himself never did learn to smile like that.

And then it becomes too late. That damned Strawhat intuition, or maybe oversensitive haki; one morning Luffy stops him, grabs his wrist with a dead man’s grip when Law walks past, looks at him with round eyes without a shade of a smile and says:

“You’re sick.”

Says it entirely without emotion, but to Law it still seems as though his voice carries blame.

“I’m dying, Strawhat,” Law says in answer, and Luffy’s eyes get slightly wider, his fingers release.

But that morning Law feels about as he has for the entire past month, and looks about as awful as he had on the very first day of his arrival; and there’s no objective reason that Luffy should suddenly know that something’s wrong with him if he didn’t know before. 

And only in the evening does he start to feel worse.

So much so that he can hardly move; never mind getting on his ship and heading to where his crew waits. He has barely enough strength left to escape the circle of Strawhats round the bonfire, scaring newcomers with stories about their adventures, to get to the high shore and lower himself on the grass.

From here he can hear the waves kiss the shore below. Far ahead the sun drowns against the sea. 

Luffy sits down next to Law before it loses the last of its strength and sinks.

“I should have left earlier,” Law finally breaks the silence. “Shouldn’t have come at all. I wanted to die in the North Blue, on an island where . . . ah. It doesn’t matter, an island there. But I told myself that I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Why didn’t you say earlier?” Luffy reproaches—no, merely says. “We would’ve found something. A medicine, or a treatment, or . . .”

“I’m a doctor, Luffy,” Law reminds him. “I know when there’s nothing left to be done.” After a moment, he adds: “More than that, I’ve already lived twenty years longer than I should have.” 

Luffy punches him lightly in the shoulder. 

“But they were an awesome twenty years, right?”

“Perhaps.”

“Liar.”

“You’re right. The best years.”

“Good, then.”

“Except for the day when I thought of offering you an alliance.”

Luffy laughs.

The last of the pink clouds meld into night. Luffy falls on his back, throwing his arms wide—“wow, Torao, look at those stars!”—tugs Law after himself. Law doesn’t have the strength to resist.

“I’m going to die young, too,” Luffy tells him unexpectedly. “You didn’t know? That time, in Impel Down, Iva warned me that if I didn’t stop, I’d take ten years off my life. Or twenty? I forgot.”

It doesn’t seem to upset him at all. Law asks all the same: 

“You’re not sorry?”

“Like hell,” confirms Luffy.

Law smiles. 

Maybe it’s the night, or maybe it’s the closeness of eternity that seeps the chill under his skin. The sake Luffy stole from the party hardly helps. Even their sloppy reminiscences, thrown back and forth, warm him less and less.

“Do you remember, that time we stuck Chopper on your head?” Luffy guffaws. “You could see it on your face, how much you regretted saving me then . . . !”

Law's smirk is weak.

“Alliance, Strawhat. I regretted the alliance. That regret became a close of friend of mine, trust me.”

“Nah, I don’t believe you,” laughs Luffy. “I know you had fun with us.”

Looking at the stars becomes too exhausting, and Law closes his eyes.

“I never did tell you, why I decided to pull you out of Marineford.”

“I know anyway, what’s there to tell,” says Luffy. “ ‘Cause you’re nakama.”

No, not because of that, Law needs to tell him. _We weren’t even friends, then; I liked you because of your smile. It’s important to smile, so don’t ever stop, don’t . . ._

But it’s already difficult to speak.

“I know,” repeats Luffy, choked, and ruffles his hair.

 

Through exhaustion, through the crushing weight of eternity, he feels someone’s hand caress his head; and maybe Law absorbed some of that unfailing intuition from Luffy, in the end, because his heart clenches even before he opens his eyes.

“You grew up a good person,” Cora-san tells him.

And smiles.


End file.
